Too Many Buyer Personas w/ Jay Baer

We asked Jay Baer, President of Convince & Convert, his thoughts on the content marketing challenge of having too many buyer personas. Here’s what he told us:

Transcript:

“You have too many personas and thus cannot create content that is valuable long term. I think you’ve actually answered your own question: You have too many personas.

Let me remind you something about personas: just because you have a distinct audience segment, just because you have an audience type that is of value to your company, does not mean that audience mean that audience type or persona has to be addressed with content. And it certainly does not mean that it has to be addressed with content commensurate with how you address other personas with content.

Said more plainly: You have to have some children you love more than other children. That’s okay. In fact, it’s the right strategy. Just because an audience exists doesn’t mean it’s equally important.

What you have to do is sit down with the leadership of your organization and say, ‘Look, we have X number of bullets in the gun. We do not have an unlimited supply of ammunition. Consequently we have to be selective about which of these personas really matter.’

If the answer is still too many then you just have to go at them sequentially. If we ultimately have to address six personas (which is my estimation is far too many), then let’s do two at a time. We’re going to do two personas over six months and do all kinds of content for those two personas. Then we’re going to switch to personas three and four, then switch again to five and six.

Where you get into trouble, and where I think you are today, is trying to create a smattering of random content for a whole bunch of different personas at one time. What you end up with is a situation where you are never really going deep and satiating the information needs of any of those personas. You’re doing an okay job for too many people.

The answer to your question is to rip off the band-aid and say, ‘Okay, let’s do more, but for fewer persona types.’”